Today's Video Games Will Look Ancient In A Decade
Two video game creation tools hit my radar today and they can't wait until Monday's edition
Two things to kick off this bonus morning edition of The Bleeding Edge.
‘Unreal Engine’ Video Game Demo Looks Real
Unreal Engine is a 3D creation tool that’s starting to get scary good. The tool is owned by Epic Games, who used the Unreal Engine software to build the wildly popular video game Fortnite.
If you have a kid under ten years old, have they asked you to buy them V-Bucks, the in-game currency used to buy things in the virtual Fortnite world?
Due to Fortnite’s chokehold on parents’ wallets via buying V-Bucks, Epic Games has been able to make the incredibly business-savvy move of releasing their 3D creation tool for anyone to build their own game on top of.
They just released the latest tech demo of Unreal Engine 5.2, and it looks unbelievably good.
If it looks slightly blurry, be sure to change the quality to 1080p. It really is worth it. I dare anyone to leave a comment and say their mind isn’t blown lol.
I’m not a game developer, so I can’t speak to the ease of use of the procedurally generated changes made to the map when he moved the big rock and quickly changed the landscape later in the video, but I’m sure that trick alone will save weeks in some AAA game production timelines.
As for individuals, I don’t know how to speak to that now.
The actionable takeaway from this, especially for many of the musicians and music producers who recently joined the newsletter list, I’d recommend toying with Unreal Engine 5 if you have any interest in creating music videos.
Blockbuster movies have begun using Unreal Engine 5 for virtual environments and attaching a motion tracker to their virtual camera, so they can hold a camera in real life and move it around in the virtual world to get the shot they need.
Unreal Engine 5 is free.
AI-Generated Dialogue For NPCs
Imagine having a literal out-loud conversation with an NPC (non-player character) in a video game. The character listens to you, thinks about what you said, and responds accordingly, given the values and quirks of the character.
That level of immersion is still many years away, but the first edition of this technology has been announced by game developer Ubisoft.
The tool will help video game script writers create more diverse “barks,” aka phrases or sounds made by NPCs during a triggered event, such as a character saying “grenade out” or even two NPCs having a conversation in a crowded area.
Instead of giving AI characters free rein over what they can say, the AI tool called Ghostwriter gives first-draft “barks” to the scriptwriters, who then approve or disapprove. The AI learns from that feedback and continues generating more first drafts.
This frees up the writer’s time to build out even more “bark-trees,” aka optional phrases for the NPCs to say.
While this is cool and all, there’s nothing better than in-person interactions with friends and loved ones.
But all this tech stuff is still pretty damn cool too.